To stand before the religious leaders and defy them was gutsy. Jesus did more than defy them, though. He called them wicked, bad trees with bad fruit. The Pharisees were a sect focused on keeping purity, so this would have been a major insult. By attempting to control the people and their relationship with God, they had actually gotten further from God themselves. A good solution might be to learn how to bring wholeness instead of condemning every minor behavior, but that's a hard lesson to learn when you're committed to legalism.